Construction activities to resume in Egypt after 4 months of suspension

Construction activities are set to resume in Egypt in a few days, approximately four months after the Egyptian government suspended them to review building licenses and deal with construction violations across the North African country.

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According to the cabinet’s spokesman, Counselor Nader Saad a committee tasked with issuing new building regulations is set to meet with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly on Monday 5th to brief him on the new rules before they are officially approved.

In the meantime, parties who have valid building permits issued before the decision to stop construction i.e. before the 24th of last May and parties that had already started building before that particular date are allowed to start construction immediately while others wait until the new rules and regulations are approved. The construction is however limited to four floors until the new conditions are issued.

About the suspension of construction activities in the country

Egyptian municipal authorities were ordered in late May to suspend the issuance of new construction permits and to halt building activities that were underway in Cairo, Giza, Qalioubiya, Alexandria, and other cities for six months.

Over the past few decades, the country had seen a continuous increase in haphazard and unlicensed construction across its cities and villages, with these structures constituting 70 percent of the urban clusters by the year 2011.

Illegal construction surged noticeably amid the security vacuum that followed the 2011 uprising, with many people constructing multi-story buildings without acquiring the necessary permits or complying with safety standards.

The main objective of the suspension of construction activities was to give the Ministry of Interior judicial oversight to counter any illegally build buildings. The cabinet’s spokesman said that the decision to stop construction will be justified when the new conditions, which will solve the many construction-related problems that the society has suffered for decades, are issued.